Abstract
The question upon which the Founding Fathers were most drastically divided was whether a treaty could supersede a Congressional statute and whether a Congressional statute could supersede a treaty. This question, to which they provided no answer, is that to which the Supreme Court has furnished a most decisive answer. The question is of high importance because its answer has a direct bearing on the relationship both of treaties and statutes to the supremacy of the Constitution. For example, if an act of Congress could not supersede a treaty in national law, then the treaty power would have some degree of supremacy over the legislative power. This would then pose a question as to the relative degree of supremacy between treaties and the Constitution.
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© 1960 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Byrd, E.M. (1960). Treaties and Executive Agreements as Viewed by the Supreme Court. In: Treaties and Executive Agreements in the United States. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-1073-8_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-1073-8_5
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